Monday, April 30, 2012

...and that's a wrap! I spent all of the final day of my residency documenting works completed during the past two weeks. It took longer than I thought it would and there was more work than I thought, also. I was determined to get the photos done yesterday in order to have it over and done with.

I had a small bit of mixed feelings about the residency coming to an end, but I had prepared myself for that by looking ahead and seeing where I could make some changes around my schedule to accommodate the momentum that I've built up. I'm still mulling over the lessons learned and what the overall effects of this project were so that I can post about it in a coherent way.

I will say that the biggest gain for me was the day-to-day engagement with the work and processes. More than the results of the works themselves, that consistent engagement with my ideas and ways of making work that really fed the fire of creativity for me. That engagement was also pushed by the knowledge that this wasn't an open-ended situation. Even though I had the luxury of not thinking about work, I knew that I was going to have to return to the usual grind and I had to make the most of every second of my time in the studio. Not that I don't usually, but the stakes were higher for those two weeks because I didn't know when I might be able to repeat a similar situation again (although I am hoping to repeat it again next year).

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Yesterday (Sat. 4.28.12) was the slowest paced day of this entire project. Lots was done, but reflection and puttering replaced some of the kinetic energy of previous days. Part of it was seeing the end of the project nearing and feeling generally tired the whole day. Honestly, I have been pushing myself a lot these past couple of weeks, and for good reason. There is no slacking when you have time like this to live as a full-time artist, even if only for two weeks. Plus, there were so many projects stuck in my head that I wanted to move forward on that there wasn't time to waste.

Even though my residency is winding down, my motivation for making art is stronger than ever. I see now that I need to make some changes in my job/studio/home schedule to accommodate more consistent time in the studio. The job schedule is set, but it's the time around it that I need to rearrange somewhat.

I'm going to use today for documentation of the works I completed over the past two weeks and will share images here soon. In my next and last post for the residency, I will sum up the experience as best I can and hopefully provide some insight for those who might want to do something similar for themselves.

Friday, April 27, 2012

As I was preparing to leave the apartment to head to the studio on Wednesday, I kept having this feeling that I wanted to go to Blick Art Supplies on Chestnut St. I hadn't been there in a while and I do like to browse art supplies stores once in a while. Blick doesn't have anything that I can't get at Artist and Craftsman, right around the corner from my studio and which keeps me knee-deep in the paper and panels that I use, but the feeling persisted, so after I unloaded my bag at the studio, rode over to Blick.

I guess that going to Blick was one of those things that was supposed to happen. As I was checking my backpack at the counter, the security guard handed me a store coupon for 25% off of purchases for that day only. Yes, I thought, this was supposed to happen...

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

You see the grey spatter and drips on the pieces above? That's the result of using one hand to move a large piece of foam core with a piece of paper on it with one hand, a brush in the other and knocking over an open container of paint. I don't know how many "F-bombs" I dropped once I saw the damage, but it was one for the record books.

Ladies and gentlemen, take heed: always, always, always put recently finished works somewhere out of the way of any working area in your studio. Even if you think, "this will be ok here for a moment", that's when things like my experience will happen. At the very least, cover them with something, just in case and...

...always have a stash of chocolate on hand to deal with the aftermath.